CHAPTER X

THE MILKING-LESSON

"I would I were a milkmaid."--TENNYSON.

Elizabeth was right in her prediction. Before the three next days were up I had again encountered this Captain Holiday.

This time it was not in that Augean stable of a cow-house--which, by the way, I had finished cleaning out--thereby earning a word of approbation from Mr. Price, and also hardening my muscles. I no longer felt that my body was full of new bones, all hurting me at once. I felt, already, as if I were gaining a new body.

Quite ready for anything I felt on that late afternoon when Mrs. Price came to me with the two big milk pails.

"Please scald these out," said the farmer's daintily-featured little wife. "You can take your first milking-lesson this evening."

I was delighted as I washed my hands in the back kitchen, scalded out the pails, and followed Mrs. Price in her crisp grey overall into the big cow stall.

Milking! This would be so much easier, as well as more enjoyable, than wielding that pitchfork and bending my back over that heavy barrow to and from that disgusting midden!

How fragrant, after that last job, was the atmosphere of the big stable, where the breath of the cows mingled with the incomparable smell of the new milk that was already frothing and foaming into the pail held between the knees of the Land Girl "Curley"--that straight-haired, smiling brunette.

She was sitting milking the biggest of the seven black-and-white cows that stood tied up in a row. At the stall next to her sat Sybil on a three-legged stool of heavy oak, also milking busily.

"Now, Joan, you shall start away on Clover here. She's the easiest," said Mrs. Price, leading me to a cow at the farther end of the stable--a cow that was snowy white but for the broad band of black that encircled her body and the black tassel of her tail.

The farmer's wife took that tail in her hand and with a twist of straw-rope tied it down to one of the cow's hind-legs.

"That is to stop her flicking you in the eye with it," explained Mrs. Price. "Now Vic always puts the tail to the cow's side and pins it down by leaning her head against it; but you can't manage that yet. Always nervous they are at first, with a stranger. Soon get used to you," Mrs. Price assured me, as the cow looked round, tossed her head, shuffled her little hoofs, and would have twitched that captive tail. "I'll talk to her a little."

Fondling her silky flanks, the farmer's wife spoke to Clover, in soothing, softly-accented words that I suppose were Greek to Curley and Sybil--but I still remembered a little of the language that had been chattered about me in those far-off school-room days, when I'd worn a plait and wandered about a Welsh farm, so differently run from this one.

I'd seen Dad's cowman stand to milk on the steep hillside, where the cows grazed. He had called to his cows just like this.

"Little heart!" cooed Mrs. Price, in Welsh. "Heart of gold! Best white sugar, you are! Little Clover, dear! I'll start her, Joan."

She set the wide-lipped pail under the cow, and with that other small, capable hand of hers began milking where she stood. Sharply and copiously the white spurts ran through her fingers.

"Now, Joan," she said in a moment. "Sit down to it. Take your pail so. Now your fingers like this. Now try."

I tried.

Once or twice I'd been allowed to try at home, long ago. But how I'd forgotten!

Heavens! How difficult it was! If Clover were the easiest cow in that stable, I should have been sorry to try the most unyielding one! It was almost impossible to me at first to squeeze out even a drop of milk.

I worked away, and quite suddenly I realized that it was coming mightily hard on my fingers and forearms, this work that seemed to be no work at all to Mrs. Price, and easy enough to the two other girls.

"Do you know how long it takes to make a milker, a really first-class milker? Three years," declared the farmer's wife impressively. "And even then she has to be born as well as made, like. After all, it's an art, same as playing the piano. But you can learn to milk quite well, quite so that the cows get milked all right, in a month, say. You'll do all right, only work."

I worked without much success, but doggedly. I was sweating with effort under my hat and into my mesh garments, lent by Sybil. I was flushed, but determined; terrified of hurting Clover, delighted when a meagre spurt of milk did reward me, attentive to Mrs. Price's instructions, and afraid I was showing myself up as the completest fool, when--

Yes, this naturally was the moment that that young man's voice made itself heard behind me. He must have come in by the other door farther down the stable.

"Good evening, Mrs. Price!"

"Good evening, Captain Holiday. Have you come to have another look round?"

"You don't mind, I know," said the direct, uncompromising tone, which I could guess was accompanied by that friendly and ingratiating smile.

Intent upon my occupation, I went on struggling. My back was to him; but there are times when one can feel a pair of eyes fixed as surely as one could feel a hand placed on the nape of one's neck.

* * * * * * *

Now, looking back, I wonder at myself.

Was there really that time when I never wished to see him? Was he still nothing to me, then? It seems incredible to me, after all that has come since.

But, that late afternoon, all in the fragrant atmosphere of the milk that rang in the pails, with the sweet grass-scented breath of the cows all about me, he was nothing to me, nothing still but an intruder.

* * * * * * *

With a sigh of exasperation I tugged at the warm, leathery udder of Clover. Strenuous minutes elapsed. Still Captain Holiday stood by, saying no word to me, but always watching.

Always conscious of his presence, I saw nothing of him but his shadow flung before him, clean-cut blue on the yellow-white wall of the stable.

Then I heard Mrs. Price asking him if he were comfortable at the lodge?

So that was where he lived; Vic had told me there was quite a swanky big lodge to the hospital grounds.

He told Mrs. Price that they were very nice quarters. Then came something I hadn't expected. I heard Mrs. Price give a curiously mischievous little chuckle. It ran through her voice as she asked the next question:

"More than enough room there, isn't there, Captain Holiday, for a bachelor?"

This was a hint, I know, smiling and plainly meant! Not only that, but I felt her smile taking in myself as well as him.

She was as bad as Elizabeth. I was glad my back was towards both of them.

Captain Holiday's cool voice replied:

"Quite. That's why I'm having some people down to stay with me. Must have a house-party for the concert. You know we're getting up a concert at the hospital, Mrs. Price. Yes, I'm expecting a wounded pal of mine down in a day or so."

Mrs. Price's soft voice broke in to speak to me.

"Tired, Joan? Rest a minute, just----"

I moved into a more comfortable position, giving a look round before I bent to my task again.

The young "Must-know-all," as the nursery phrase has it, was still watching my fingers. What was it in his slight smile that seemed to prompt me to what I did next?

I squeezed some milk on to my fingers, and then, I know, his smile grew broader. It was as though he'd seen that old trick somewhere, and had egged me on to it. But where had this soldier watched milking before?

"That's coming better now, Joan," approved Mrs. Price. "That's because you wetted your fingers. Look--dip your fingers in the milk, my mother taught me. Easier for the cow and easier for you."

I said:

"Yes, I remember now seeing the man dip his fingers in the pail at Dad's farm. I'd forgotten. Lots of things will come back to me presently."

Here, above me, the man's shadow moved quickly on the wall. It was as though Captain Holiday, still planted there behind me, were listening as intently as he was watching me.

Rather confused, I went on to show that I did know something about this job.

"I saw on the efficiency test papers," said I, "that the examiners from headquarters don't like the wet milking. It said preference would be given to dry milking."

"Cleaner, for some, p'raps," said Mrs. Price. "Fifteen marks, too; but I thought you were no town girl! Doesn't it show now, Captain Holiday?"

A non-committal "Um" came from Captain Holiday as his tall shadow slid away from the wall and out of the farmyard just as Elizabeth and Vic came in.

"Again!" was my chum's laconic comment when we were walking home.

I laughed good-humouredly enough, for I was a little pleased with the way I'd got on with my work.

"Elizabeth, you're getting one-idea'ed," I told her as I strolled along, picking out of the hedge a country nosegay of stitchwort and dog-violets and primroses with one gay pink flower of campion. "I must say I shall be glad when Hackenschmidt the Second turns up----"

"Who?"

"The hefty Brute who's going to tame you, you Man-hater, when the time comes," I explained, putting a leaf of Herb-Robert, pungent-scented and lacy, as frill to my bouquet. "I shall be able to rag you about him then, instead of having to put up with your nonsense. You wait."

"Yes, I'm waiting," nodded Elizabeth grimly.

I said "All things come to her who waits. I expect he'll take at _least_ seventeens in boots! And throw them at you!"